With the lackluster offseason, many Giants fans are desperate to boost the roster by trading away Bryce Eldridge for a better starting pitcher and improve the rotation, under the rationale that with Rafael Devers, another power hitting left-handed first baseman, the Giants could afford to trade Eldridge for someone like Joe Ryan. Some also note the poor success rate of top prospects to justify this move.
Here’s a major part of the reason why I do not want to trade Eldridge: he’s an extremely rare position player.
ogc thoughts
In the prior ten seasons (2015-2024), there has been 11 20 YO (or younger) players deemed good enough to play in the majors at that young age, as a rookie, roughly oner per year. 8 of the 11 are names we know easily, because they were that good: Correa, Devers, Albies, Soto, Acuna, Tatis, Wander Franco, Jackson Chourio. They look on target for producing 40-50 bWAR in their careers, roughly what Buster Posey produced, for a Giants example.
The other three are Aldaberto Mondesi, Luis Garcia Jr, and Jackson Holliday, and maybe Holliday will someday join the others.
And that’s out of roughly 2,100 rookies. So teams have been very careful about who gets the coveted call up at age 20, and they have mostly turned out well.
Of course, there are Giants fans pointing at the three. I know the decisions made on the 11 are all individual to the player and the FO, and hence different from Posey promoting Eldridge. But the decision to promote at this young an age is not taken lightly, because a team doesn't want to mess with a budding star's confidence either, by pushing him to a league he can’t handle.
So, are you willing to take the chance of trading away a player who might produce 40-50 bWAR, which the first six names is on track for, and Franco was on track, and Chourio looks capable of?
His MiLB Stats Suggest Potential
One rule of thumb that I've come up with is seeing how young a prospect is when he dominates a minor league level, and then seeing at what age he would have to reach to be similarly young vs the majors. This gives milestones to observe to see if they are able to keep up with their prior performance.
Heliot Ramo, for example, dominated AAA at age 23 season, -3.7 years younger, while struggling at age 22. He also struggled in the majors until 2024, when he was 24 YO, -4.3 years younger than the majors. It’s no guarantee, but more another thing to look for before giving up on a promising prospect.
Another example is Chase Utley. He hit .907 OPS at age 24 in AAA, younger by 3.1 years, and struggled in the majors for a couple of seasons before breaking out at age 26 in the majors, 3.4 years younger than the MLB average age.
For a player nearer and dearer to Giants hearts, Brandon Belt hit well in AAA at age 22, 4.8 years younger. He struggled some in the majors initially, his first MLB season, but in his next season, he was 4.4 years younger than the league, and had his first good season. Belt had an elite season at age 23 in AAA-ball, 3.9 years younger, and in 2013, when he was 3.3 years younger, he had his first elite hitting season.
If Eldridge follows this pattern, he truly breaks out at around age 26 YO season (which would be five seasons from now). In addition, he also hit pretty well at AAA last season, 6.8 younger than the league, and in 2026, he should be 7.0 years younger than the league, so by this rule of thumb, he might be ready to hit okay in the majors in 2026.
No Trade Before We Find Out More
So, overall, I am not willing to take that chance. Such a player could be generational and would be a team leader for 10-15 seasons, and Eldridge would be the one to lead us after the Core 3 of Devers, Adames and Chapman age out, and hopefully producing well while the first two are still productive. And bridge the Giants to when the young top prospects, basically our top Latino prospects (Josuar Gonzalez, Luis Hernandez, Keynes Martinez, Argenis Cayama, Luis De La Torre, Jhonny Level, and others) plus Gavin Kilen and #4 pick, plus perhaps Bo Davidson, Jacob Bresnahan, and Dakota Jordan, reach the majors in 3-5 seasons, plus however long they need to be MLB productive.
Maybe he blows out. He’s very tall and so far seemingly injury prone, he’s had injuries the past two seasons. He does strike out a lot!
But you have to roll the dice when you have such a great prospect and see if he can be that guy for you. You don’t want a situation like when the Padres, under new baseball ops leader Preller, traded away Trea Turner before knowing what he’s capable of. I also love the fact that Bryce wants to be a leader, wants to be the guy driving in runs, wants to be one of the greats. You don’t often see guys who are that talented talking openly of reaching for the brass ring. I would be very upset if he’s traded.
Hitting With One Wrist Not 100%
Especially given that it was reported that Eldridge was held back last season by an injured wrist (bone spur) that they operated on the moment the season ended. It’s been reported that Schmitt had the same problem, and he talked about how it weakened his grip a lot.
Despite this physical problem, he still hit well in the upper minors, which is still quite the accomplishment for any 20 year old prospect, but now it is clear that he could have been even better had he been fully healthy.
We need to see how well he hits unencumbered by the bone spur. And one would think would have hampered his hitting greatly, and yet, he still hit very well, just not great, as he did in 2024. Which is probably why he didn’t rise up higher in Top 100 rankings, falling from 12 to 18 in Baseball America, 24 to 25 in MLB Pipeline, though he rose from 29 to 23 for Keith Law.
The One Who Got Away
And it appears the Giants also believe in Eldridge’s potential, and want to see what they got with Eldridge.
Recent reporting was that the Giants pursued trading for All-Star SS CJ Abrams, who provides both speed and power, plus defense, from the Nationals, offering a package headlined by Josuar Gonzalez, with Whisenhunt, Davidson, Bresnahan, and Level also being discussed as being part of the package. That’s many of our closest impact prospects (Whisenhunt, Davidson, Bresnahan) and some of our long term impact prospects (Josuar and Level). Yet discussions ended, presumably because the Nationals wanted someone not on the list above.
Josuar is the consensus #2 prospect, so the only better prospect that the Nationals could be hoping to get from the Giants is Eldridge. And given that the trade discussion has ended, it means that the Giants aren’t willing to trade Eldridge for a young All-Star SS with power and speed, and three years of cheap control, and the Nationals wasn’t going to accept anyone except for Eldridge, who is the only prospect better than Josuar.
This shows how very high a bar the Giants have for trading Eldridge, and thus how very likely it is that the Giants keep him for the 2026 season.
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